Saturday, January 10, 2015

Good Story On E-85 Blender Pumps

I ran across this good story on Market Talk and know you will enjoy it.

"Not sure if I should put this here or in crop talk but it's got to go somewhere. I was at the local corn growers meeting tonight and learned about how powerful a group can be if you put just a little effort into pushing for people to notice the farmer and his product.

First a little background on our group. It is a new county level group of farmers from Mille Lacs, Kanabec, Chisago, and Isanti counties in east central Minnesota. We had a few guys get in touch with the state level corn growers association a year or so ago to form this group, East Central Minnesota Corn Growers. I started going last July and have only attended a few meetings now. We are still in the process of getting our board of directors set up and actively prospecting more members. So in summary, we are a very small group in a not so big corn producing area.

Now for the reason I'm sharing this. At the first meeting I went to last July, one of the topics of discussion was an E-85 promotion this small group of guys had done at a local gas station. They made a deal with station to give an $.85/gal rebate to each driver that fueled up with E-85 for like a 3 or 4 hour period. The price just happened to be $2.85 so they changed the price to $2 and the promotion was underway. A few of the members manned the pumps, filled each vehicle that pulled up, explained what they were doing with the $.85/gal discount, and thanked them for using the product.

When it was all said and done, this group payed for $900 some odd dollars of E-85. Now fast forward to tonight's meeting. We got a message from the state corn growers that because of this effort they are putting in 6 blender pumps across Minnesota as a pilot program for Ethanol. If these 6 pumps work out, they will add 73 more across Minnesota and the Dakotas! It is just amazing to me that this all started from a $900 promotion at an E-85 pump in Princeton, MN from a small group of farmers promoting our product! The gas station says that since this promotion, their E-85 sales have also increased!

So, for those of you that don't think you can make a difference, you're dead wrong! This little group of small time farmers could be the reason for 80 more Ethanol pumps in the northern Midwest! So I encourage you to do something to promote our business or join your local corn growers group because you can make a difference! And if you see a new pump pop up in your area, please use it as there could be 73 more that come with it all because of YOU!"

Amen! It's time for us corn growers to roll up our sleeves and get to work!